Ozone is widely used throughout the world as a beneficial agent for destroying or eliminating bacteria and viruses, mold, fungi, and undesirable odors in household and commercial environments. To provide ozone in these and other environments, ozone generators have been developed to produce ozone from oxygen containing air passed through the ozone generator. Typically, ozone generators of the prior art include one or more pairs of planar electrodes arranged in spaced apart and noncontacting relationship with dielectric plates disposed between the electrodes. In operation, the electrodes are energized by a high voltage AC source, typically having an output voltage exceeding 5,000 volts applied to the electrodes, to generate a corona or high energy electric field between the electrodes while undesirable arcing between the electrodes is prevented by the dielectric plates. Ozone is produced by passing oxygen containing air across the energized electrodes through air passages formed between the dielectric plates.
One factor known to affect ozone production efficiency of a generator is the energized surface area of the planar electrodes. To maximize this surface area, wire mesh electrodes have been used in the past in ozone generator cells. However, due to the flexibility of wire mesh electrodes in comparison to known rigid metallic electrodes, a problem has existed in maintaining uniformity of spacing between adjacent pairs of the wire mesh electrodes. As wire mesh electrodes have a tendency to bend or flex, the distance between adjacent pairs of electrodes may become nonuniform, thereby causing an unequal distribution of the electric field between the electrodes or, in extreme cases, arcing between the electrodes. It will be appreciated that nonuniform electric field distribution results in inefficient ozone production while arcing between the electrodes may destroy the ozone generator cell altogether. For this reason, fine wire mesh electrodes have not been used in ozone generators of the prior art.
Moreover, arcing between electrodes outside of the peripheral edges of the dielectric plates is also a concern in ozone generator cell design. To reduce or eliminate this problem, ozone generator cells of the prior art have incorporated dielectric plates having length and width dimensions of greater extent than those of the electrodes. In some instances, the dielectric plates may have peripheral edges which extend one or more inches beyond the peripheral edges of the electrodes to eliminate arcing between the electrodes. Thus, ozone generator cells of the prior art have been required to sacrifice smaller size and lighter weight to accommodate for the extended dimensions of the dielectric plates.